Building resilience: Mitigating the impact of aging workforce and resource constraints
As the utility workforce evolves and experienced professionals approach retirement, ensuring a smooth transition and preserving critical knowledge becomes paramount.
This 30-minute talk will help you understand how modern utility organizations build resilience through cutting-edge workflows, digitize knowledge, and reduce the impact of losing valuable expertise.
Watch this talk to understand:
- Effective asset management: Digitizing tribal knowledge for seamless transfer through the organization.
- Mitigating risks: Using digital records to handle risks associated with workforce changes.
- Knowledge transfer: Enhancing knowledge retention through improved tools and workflows.
Learn more about Skydio for Utilities.
- Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode two of our Smart Grid
- series,
- and we'll be discussing today building resilience, mitigating the impact of the
- aging workforce and resource constraints.
- So my name is Christina Park. I'm really excited to be your host today.
- I am, um, the senior director of energy marketing
- here at
- Skydo. I've been here since March of this year,
- and prior to that, uh, I
- spent the last fifteen years at the New York Power Authority.
- So, uh, my last role there was as senior director of a
- department called Asset Intelligent Solutions.
- So I kind of got there in a little bit of a roundabout way, but I started
- as an engineer in the hydro engineering department, working on life ex-
- extension and modernization programs for our hydro plants, uh, and then
- moved over to strategic operations in the last few years, uh, working with asset
- management, building up our reliability center
- maintenance program, uh,
- investigating technology solutions and technical enablement, um, and
- monitoring diagnostics to really try to end-to-end, um, bring digital
- solutions to scale. So I'm really excited to put these two
- roles
- together, uh, and actually quite passionate about the
- promising future that,
- uh, technology such as drones has.
- So let's dive in. Um, so what are subject matter experts, and why are
- they important in a utility? So you'll often see the acronym SME,
- which stands for subject matter expert.
- So they are highly specialized individuals who are experts in a
- specific, often narrow field. So they're developed over time,
- and whether it's generation, transmission, or distribution, it takes
- years of experience in design, manufacturing, um, and
- time out in the field to really develop the expertise that's needed.
- Historically, the SMEs at utilities are composed of personnel who've worked
- there for pretty much their whole careers.
- Um, and while expertise is not always correlated to age,
- it's fairly
- common that your most tenured staff, uh, with the most field experience are
- the ones that are directing or being consulted for critical decisions
- in design, operations, and maintenance.
- Um, so what you want in a s- subject matter expert
- is not only someone who's
- technically excellent, um, but also someone whose experience
- encompasses a
- history in the field, um, at, at your...
- preferably at your specific utility.
- So their experience encompasses not only the equipment, but the operating
- conditions and the maintenance philosophies,
- which can vary from utility to
- utility, right? Um, and on top of that, uh, they also are
- privy to the, um, the internal processes of the
- organization, such as procurement, um, and how different silos work together,
- and the history of utility and how you've run things.
- So what is the risk of losing subject matter expertise, and why
- is that more critical these days? So the risk has always been there,
- but there's, there's a bit of a change
- that comes now in, uh, in this
- time, particularly after the pandemic.
- So I'm gonna take a pause here and tell a little story.
- Uh, hopefully the analogy will make sense.
- So when I was in college, I played softball my freshman year, and
- I remember walking on the team, doing spring training,
- and then going to Florida
- for a tournament where we played double headers every day, and we promptly got
- destroyed. So after the first two days of double
- headers, uh, when we
- were run ruled in all four games, it was, uh, totally
- demoralizing for the team. And the obvious root cause was that all of
- our pitchers had actually graduated the previous year, which left us to start
- from scratch and teach two freshmen how to pitch that season.
- Um, I was not one of them, but as you can imagine, that left us
- extremely vulnerable. So college sports generally follow the
- same formula,
- where talent is recruited and trained and seasoned year over year, and
- your seniors are typically your best players, and they get the most field time.
- So there's even this concept of redshirting.
- So an especially talented recruit can practice with the team for a year and then
- have a fifth year senior year, so they're, they're an even stronger player.
- So that being said, I think utilities are kind of at a point these days
- where it's like playing on a team where the majority of the starting lineup are
- seniors on the brink of graduation and the landscape of normal has
- changed, where incoming students aren't necessarily
- inclined to
- stay with the same team or even with the same sport for four
- or five years.
- So as a coach, how do you not get run ruled in every
- game?
- So I think there are two factors to be considered these days in utility
- leadership when it comes to staffing and succession planning.
- Um, the first is with the pandemic, as is common with a lot of other industries
- across the board, there was a sudden increase in the number of
- people changing
- careers. So for utilities in particular, there was also an
- increase in the number of retirements for those who were eligible.
- So these two factors together meant that many of the staff with the most
- knowledge were suddenly out the door, uh, some with little to no warning.
- So the second factor is that there's been a bit of a culture
- change in
- approaching careers in the last couple generations.
- So while it was fairly commonplace in the past to stay in one industry
- or one company for the majority of a career,
- that's actually no longer the norm.
- So when you look at college graduates today,
- particularly with how they've grown up
- with information at their fingertips, um, the long-term career
- mindset has shifted, and it's much more commonplace to move
- around every
- few years. So when you think about subject matter
- expertise, uh, it
- has a dependency on people sticking with a field or company for a long time, as
- well as the ability to retain and develop successors.
- So I'm sure we've all experienced this whenever anyone leaves a company,
- where you
- try to make sure you retain their knowledge and their files in their last
- few
- weeks, but we've all had the situation where we
- wish we'd done more before they
- left, because once they're gone, we're looking for a piece of information
- or we're
- looking for, um, a decision that they would have made really easily,
- uh, that, that we may be left, uh, up in the air for.
- So what are some ways that the risk can be mitigated?
- So to go back to my softball team analogy, there were actually two effects
- of losing the entire bullpen to graduation.
- The obvious one is that we had no strength on the mound,
- and the opposing team
- is going to crush us and rack up the runs.
- The less obvious one is that all of us on the team
- were actually awful at batting
- because we were getting pitched to in practice by inexperienced pitchers
- So I myself couldn't get my bat off the shoulder fast enough because the
- opposing pitchers were throwing five times as fast as what I
- was seeing in
- practice. So to our coaches' everlasting credit,
- what did they do?
- After the first two days of getting demoralized,
- they took us to the batting cages.
- It was probably the most effective use of our practice time, and in a couple
- hours we were all simultaneously able to go up against machines who
- would throw us pitches that were fast and accurate enough, uh,
- in the strike zone
- to prepare us for the real thing.
- Um, it wasn't going to be efficient, nor was it gonna be effective to keep
- practicing the way we always had with who we had, uh, for the rest of the
- season, and it was time to bring in some machines
- and help solve the problem as
- quickly as possible. Um, it was very obvious
- that we couldn't solve the pitching
- problem that tournament week, but we could solve the batting problem
- and give our
- pitchers a chance to develop. So in consideration of the fact
- that the workforce may be nearing retirement, it's important to
- increase efficiencies in succession planning and execution, and sometimes
- it's important to look outside the box and think about technologies that
- we can bring in, much like the batting cages, uh,
- gave us machines that helped us
- accelerate, um, the way that we mitigated that risk.
- So while there's no substitute for the tribal knowledge that's passed down
- from mentor to apprentice, there are ways to make that process more
- effective. So with a robust digital record of the
- assets and
- equipment, training can be richer, real-life visuals
- and media instead of conceptual and anecdotal knowledge shares.
- Um, and with the increase in quality data, the burden and the risk of
- placing responsibilities on your engineers decreases as they will no
- longer be dependent on needing decades of experience to confidently make
- technical decisions. So a subject matter expert with
- 30 or more years under his or her belt knows from experience
- how stress corrosion cracking will propagate, knows from experience how
- to identify a hotspot and just how bad, um, how bad that
- really is. Um, they can use their intuition to make
- decisions
- without needing as much input, but if you take a more junior or mid-level
- engineer, that's a really daunting task, and those are really big shoes to fill,
- and the consequences of making a wrong decision are actually quite high.
- So having quality data to both train and analyze for
- justification fill some of the gaps for developing staff so they can
- develop that intuition more quickly and also keep better records
- and justify their decisions.
- So it seems every year
- I get more work to do, but there aren't enough people to do it.
- Um, I think everybody in the utility can
- resonate with that.
- I think, uh, with some of the energy goals, uh,
- and the clean energy
- goals that exist, uh, there are more EV charging stations
- that need to be
- built. So loads are going to increase.
- Um, many utilities are expanding their transmission, uh,
- landscape, and with that it doesn't necessarily always come
- with additional headcount. So how do we create workforce
- efficiencies?
- So
- budgeting personal- personnel resources can be really tricky,
- uh,
- but even if you plan perfectly for the next year, there will be this
- unexpected surprise of emergent work from a failure, or there will be a new
- project or an expansion that wasn't necessarily expected, uh,
- or there
- will be somebody leaving your team. That was also unexpected.
- So these factors, uh, while they are not planned, you can
- almost count on some surprise curveball coming around the bend.
- So these can be mitigated in a couple of different ways.
- Ultimately, your staff were not hired for their ability to drive
- to some remote location. They were d- hired for their ability to design
- or assess or operate or maintain a piece of equipment.
- So by injecting technology such as drones to do the task of capturing your
- data, your staff's time can be maximized to
- focus on their area of
- expertise and really cut the fat of their time, uh,
- logistically
- getting to the area that needs to be examined.
- Um, number two, with the ability to inspect more often
- or more
- thoroughly, early indicators can help you detect the
- small problems before
- they become big problems. So this will reduce the amount of forced
- outages and emergent work that comes up.
- So while it's impossible to predict everything, uh, we
- can certainly get a, a more accurate landscape of what
- the current asset health is of, of all of our equipment.
- So then the question is, well, okay,
- drones sound like a viable solution, uh, but this is something that most people
- have not actually had experience in, particularly, uh,
- in a utility where, um, a good portion of your staff
- may or may not be familiar with robotics or new technologies.
- So how do I convince people to try something new?
- So change can be a really difficult concept to embrace, particularly
- in an essential industry that has very little margin for failure.
- So it can be, it can be very daunting to have to go get
- a Part 107
- pilot's license or to fly a robot near an energized environment,
- um, and in some audiences there may be
- resistance against the thought that a robot
- will come and take their jobs away.
- So when I think about drone solutions, I think of it as a tool and a
- skill that's used to do a job more safely and more efficiently.
- So this is almost like
- if you want to be a qualified electrical worker, you have to go get certain
- certifications. You have to maintain a certain, uh,
- license, right?
- If you want to be a welder, you have to have a welding certification.
- If you want to drive a forklift, you have to have a certain type of
- driver's
- license. So in the same way, flying a drone is something that you get
- certified in. You, you take a test, a written exam, much like a written exam
- for a driver's license, to make sure that you understand the basics of the
- rules,
- um, and then you get some flight time in.
- Um, this is a skill that can be used just like any other tool
- that's
- currently used today.
- Having the drone doesn't actually change people's jobs or their job descriptions
- and purpose. It helps them do their jobs.
- So here, uh, we're gonna show a video of someone using
- our drone for the first
- time. You can hear the nervousness and uncertainty as they fly
- near energiz- energized lines, but you can also see their
- surprise as they see how it's much easier than they thought it would be.
- It's making me nervous.
- Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. We're coming back home.
- Remember how I told you that I was kind of scared of it the other day?
- It is a terrifying thing to surrender the control of something like this.
- Good thing is, if I'm videoing it and it wrecks, I got it on video.
- [laughs] Right?
- Right.
- [laughs]
- I think it sees everything.
- I think it does too.
- I think it's doing fine.
- Yeah.
- So you can see here, this is somebody's first experience using the
- drone.
- And I can say for myself from first-hand experience, uh, one of the cool
- things when I came over to Skydio is part of the onboarding
- is they give you a
- drone, and we go up on the rooftop and we learn how to fly it.
- And never having really flown one before, it was a little bit
- scary to think I'm gonna launch this thing off of a roof and hope that it doesn't
- crash. But it was actually within an hour I
- was able to control it, uh,
- even from my iPhone controller, not even one of our enterprise
- controllers, um,
- and, and test out the obstacle avoidance
- and understand that it's okay to
- take some risks with our drones because I can fly it at the side of a wall and
- it's gonna go around it. So I think, uh, lowering the barrier of entry,
- uh, for your staff is, uh, something that's very valuable and
- hopefully will go a long way in your change management.
- Um, so if we move on, what does this mean for my
- inspection strategy, right? So information is power.
- I think, uh, maybe I'm dating myself.
- In the '90s we used to say knowledge is power, but as we said, knowledge
- can't just be passed down from person to person anymore.
- We can actually embody that in information
- and disseminate it more, uh,
- easily. So the efficiency gains of implementing
- drone solutions
- can alleviate the stress of not being able to keep up with the growing amount of
- tasks. And the data obtained can help you
- actually prioritize your tasks.
- So based on what you see, you would now have the justification
- and the ability to
- say, "Well, this asset," I don't know, "This, um,
- this
- dam needs to be looked at, uh, ahead of this transformer
- because the data that I'm seeing is I see a crack that may
- propagate, and we don't wanna end up having
- regulatory violations when the
- time comes around, so we're gonna go take a closer look
- and invest our resources
- over there." So you can make a more accurate understanding of the state of
- your
- infrastructure, both holistically and relatively, which will give
- you clarity on how to allocate the resources, often limited resources that
- you have, and overall increase productivity.
- So what... Why are other utilities considering this?
- So it's becoming clearer as time goes on that the way we've
- always done things, that's just not sustainable going forward.
- So many utilities are considering drone solutions,
- often as an
- R&D or exploration effort. Um, but I think what's
- exciting is actually seeing how many utilities are further along in their
- journey
- and starting to think bigger and looking to operationalize these drones
- into their
- workflow. So in this next video, you can hear a testimonial
- from Levi Young of the Arkansas Valley Electric Cooperative, and his
- view of the value that they've found in the field.
- When we were wanting to map a substation, we took thousands of pictures.
- And there was a few of us pilots, and then there was a few linemen,
- a sub tag
- engineer as well, and it took about a day.
- Now I can go by myself and fly an entire substation without
- anybody there, and I
- don't have to touch the controller after I say go.
- It's making your company more effective and more efficient, and that's the future
- of where we're going. I'm happy to be using Skydio.
- I'm happy to be able to do this.
- There is one thing that I forgot to mention up front.
- Uh, for those of you who were at episode one, uh,
- we will be having a Q&A
- session, uh, shortly. And if you have any questions regarding
- what we've talked about today or about our products, uh,
- please feel free
- to drop them in the chat and we will address them during the Q&A
- time.
- So as shown in this previous video by Levi and the AVEC
- staff, if you think about the time savings,
- apples to apples,
- between manual inspections and drone inspections, you can see that
- your staff efficiency gains will prove the value in a very obvious way.
- So we can see it in the hours, uh, man-hours that are saved.
- Uh, you can see that he said that what previously took a staff, uh,
- days to come out and do, he could come out by himself and execute
- all of those missions or all of those inspections, uh,
- all at once.
- On top of that, you get the added value of having a fully
- digitized
- record that you can upload to the cloud, push to your
- platforms, uh, that you use within your utility,
- your systems of record,
- and you can capture that, uh, that information and disseminate it
- easily to all of your staff.
- Um,
- yeah, so I think at this point we will actually
- go into
- our Q&A. I'd like to introduce my colleague,
- John Fernandez, who will be answering
- questions with me.
- Hello, everyone. My name's John Fernandez.
- I'm a senior solutions engineer with Skydio.
- Been here about three years, and I've been in the drone industry for
- about seven or
- eight. I have a law enforcement and IT background,
- and most recently I've been
- working a lot with some of our larger utility customers. Happy to be here.
- Great. Thanks, John. So once again, if you have any questions, please
- drop them in the chat, and I will go look at some of these
- now. So I think one of the questions that comes up,
- uh, very frequently actually is, "Can you give an example of
- when a retirement caused a gap in your organization?" So
- I actually have a couple, but I think one that really stands out to
- me is,
- uh, we had a gentleman who worked in one of
- our hydro plants.
- Uh, he was there for a good 30 years, a little bit older.
- Um, and he was,
- he was a senior electrical engineer, I believe.
- Um, but don't let his title fool you, because he knew the plant inside out.
- He had been there so long. He had been through, uh,
- life extension and
- modernization programs, and, and he was the one who knew exactly
- the operating context and how, how they were maintained.
- And so we knew that we could always count on Rick And it was almost that
- we counted on Rick too much. So there was one day that, you know, I
- woke up, I got an email, and I found out that he passed away.
- He had had a heart attack very suddenly, um, and it was very unfortunate that he
- was gone. And I think that once we kind of went past the
- funeral and, and mourning and all of that, we realized that the
- effects that Rick had had on our organization were far greater than
- his title or, or what he, you know, made
- public, uh, was available. So when we went to
- actually take apart some of these hydro units and look into the turbines and,
- and really try to investigate so that we could write the spec to figure out
- how to,
- uh, overhaul them, we realized that the drawings didn't really match,
- uh, what we were finding when we opened it up.
- We found that there were gaskets, uh, where we didn't know there were gaskets,
- or there were gaskets missing, or there were, uh, O-rings, uh, the
- grooves were not quite the same. That there were a lot of little patches
- and
- fixes that Rick had done to keep the plant running,
- and he did them very quietly because he knew the machine so well that
- when he saw something, he just fixed it.
- Didn't really tell anyone, didn't make a big deal because everybody
- was so busy
- with all the other fires they had to put out.
- So this is one example of you have somebody who you don't
- necessarily think is so critical to your industry, but once
- they're gone, there's all this knowledge
- that you can't get back.
- And it would've been awesome if there was a way to document [laughs] everything
- that he had done, uh, so that we could have a more accurate
- picture, but this was
- an example where what we had was not what we thought we had, and there
- was no way to actually go back in time, uh, and, and document it
- or, or ask questions. So I think this was something that hit me.
- Uh, he was a very close colleague of mine, but I think it hit me pretty
- hard because as I was the engineer trying to write the spec
- and,
- and figure out the best possible turbine redesign, it would've been really helpful
- to know exactly what we had, what went wrong,
- and all the ways we had mitigated it.
- So, um, I think that's, that's the biggest example I can think of
- where a
- retirement or a death or a sudden exit of one way, one form
- or another
- has, had really impacted the organization.
- Um, another question we have, "Do you have any testimonials for indoor
- use and 3D mapping software? Also, when can we expect,
- uh, S2 Plus to be available?" So I think as
- far as the indoor use and
- 3D mapping, John, would you mind fielding this one?
- Yeah. We, we have quite a few, uh, clients using our 3D scan
- for, uh, mapping. Most recently we've introduced the indoor
- mapping skill, so we've got a few customers that
- are just starting to use
- that. I would defer to, um, reviewing our...
- We have testimonials on our website. Probably best to link to that in chat.
- Um, that can show some of the, some of the clients we're working with
- and how
- they're using it. We've also got quite a few 3D models on
- our website as
- well of not only stuff that we've done, but stuff that our clients have done using
- our 3D scan, and then subsequently, uh, turned into 3D
- models.
- Thanks, John. Uh, another question is, "What types of
- data do you see other utilities digitizing through drone inspection,
- and how does it help knowledge transfer?" So I touched on this a little bit
- before, but, uh, with Skydio you can take visual images
- and thermal
- images. Uh, this is just kind of the basic level of
- doing
- inspections or doing security perimeter scans.
- So with this you actually get that full digital library.
- You can use it to do time lapse, so you can see, um, you know,
- day over day or however often you're running your inspections to see
- if there is any progress. Uh, so you could see a propagation of a
- crack. You can see the effects of a hotspot
- and how that's spreading an
- area. Uh, you could actually see degradation, um,
- or even things
- like vegetation management in a, in a transmission right of way.
- You can see over time, uh, what is growing, uh, the rate at which it's
- growing, uh, and then make your mitigation strategy
- based on that.
- So I think for the visual inspections and thermal inspections,
- uh, that- that's what we see most of our customers
- using.
- And as John said, we do have, uh, 3D scans so that you can actually
- get a digital twin or, or a digital model of a
- piece of equipment, such as a transmission tower or, uh,
- any of your
- other assets. You could do a cooling tower or,
- or a transformer, et
- cetera. So,
- uh, that's most of what we see our, our utilities doing as far as
- digitization.
- Um, another question, "Do I need certified pilots,
- and what's the process for training a crew?" So John, I'm
- actually gonna kick this one back to you as well.
- Yeah, sure. So unless you're operating under a COA,
- then yeah, you're gonna need
- certified pilots. It's fairly, fairly easy to get, get your pilot
- certified. Um, uh, we al- also offer the, uh, option
- to do the online training for 107 prep through Skydio Academy.
- Um, so we've got the s- the different skills training for our
- different software on
- Skydio Academy, and then we also have that option as well.
- But yeah, so need to be 107 certified, again,
- unless you're gonna be flying under a
- COA. It's much easier just to go ahead and do the 107 training.
- Um, really, unless there's some edge case
- or specific use where you need
- to operate outside of 107, very often that, that's just the
- best way to go instead of trying to do a COA. But it's not hard to do.
- There's plenty of other resources online.
- Sit and take the test, and then, uh, you're certified.
- And then the, the recertification process has changed a
- lot recently.
- It's much easier. You don't have to go in person.
- There's no cost.
- It's just online, uh, recertification to keep your 107 current.
- Great. Thanks, John. Um, another question that we have, uh, "Do you
- have any examples of successful change management out in the field?"
- So I think at my previous, uh, utility
- we did have-
- A, a story that I like to tell of, um, one of our union
- workers who actually had an, an accident, not d- at
- work, but at home, uh, where he fell off of a ladder.
- And so he sustained some injuries, and I think that was, um,
- obviously an issue, and based on his job description,
- uh, the injuries he sustained actually
- affected his ability to do his
- job. So I think he was a bit, uh, nervous
- about his ability to come back once he had
- medical treatment. And this was a story that was actually a very big
- success, uh, for the drones program because he came
- and saw the value of learning how to use a tool to do his
- job in a way that doing it manually was no longer possible.
- So he got his license, he got trained up, he became one of our pilots, um,
- and he became, um, I think a success story
- of seeing somebody who
- may not have looked at the drone the same way had his circumstances been
- different. But because of it, it enabled him to actually do
- his job, uh, exactly the way it was written in a way that he otherwise
- might not have been able to do. So I think
- once you can actually get it into people's hands and have them try it and
- see, uh, much like the videos earlier, that it's much easier than
- they imagine it to be, um, the change management,
- actually the dominoes
- fall much quicker. So that's very exciting.
- Um,
- uh, I think we can take one more question with
- the time we have left.
- So how can leveraging drone inspections help me reduce the amount of ur-
- emergent inspections and reduce CMI?
- So I think it- when we talk about emergent work,
- so work that
- was not planned, right? Or forced outages, I think those are things that every
- utility wants to avoid or minimize.
- And so with the drone inspections, what you get is you get a more accurate
- view of your asset health and your perimeter security in a way
- that you may not
- have been able to do before because of resource constraints or budget
- constraints. So for example, remote substations, uh, it
- takes time for people to get out there.
- It takes time to manually conduct an inspection. Takes time to come back.
- And you may or may not have, the record of that inspection may be pen
- and paper. It may be what the person saw.
- It may be, uh, possibly on, on an iPhone and some sort of, uh,
- mobile solution. But at the end of the day,
- by putting a drone out there,
- particularly in remote areas with, uh, with our dock and remote subs-
- uh, remote solutions, you're able to actually get data points
- as frequently as you'd like. You can set it off like a sprinkler
- and have it run
- every morning, uh, without actually having to go out there at
- all.
- So by having a more accurate view of your asset health, you can
- detect, uh, these early indicators and find those small
- problems before they turn into emergent work and, uh, forced
- outages.
- I think that's all the time we have for today.
- Really appreciate everybody joining us.
- I think we at Skydio see the future, not just of robotics, but of intelligent
- robotics and autonomy. And we would love to partner with you, uh,
- to build
- your enterprise resilience. So please be on the lookout for
- information coming
- soon for episode three, where we will discuss distribution
- automation.
- Thanks everyone. Have a good day.
Watch Time
27 Mins 45 Secs
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